This painting is one of two portraits of Nicholas Van Dyke executed by Jefferson David Chalfant, a prominent Delaware artist. In 1914 the great-granddaughters of Senator Van Dyke, among whom was Mary Saulsbury, the wife of Delaware Senator Willard Saulsbury, Jr., presented one of the paintings to the U.S. Senate and the other to the state of Delaware. The Delaware painting is currently in the collection of the state of Delaware Bureau of Museums and Historic Sites.